A Practical Guide to Stock Portfolio Optimization and Asset Allocation

Efficient Asset Management, now in its second edition, presents a highly intuitive yet rigorous approach to defining optimal portfolios. Through practical examples and illustrations, the authors, whose firm has been chosen to cosponsor the new Harry M. Markowitz Award, update the practice of optimization for modern investment management. The book includes an optimization demo on CD-ROM.

Efficient Asset Management

A Practical Guide to Stock Portfolio Optimization and Asset Allocation

Description

In spite of theoretical benefits, Markowitz mean-variance (MV) optimized portfolios often fail to meet practical investment goals of marketability, usability, and performance, prompting many investors to seek simpler alternatives. Financial experts Richard and Robert Michaud demonstrate that the limitations of MV optimization are not the result of conceptual flaws in Markowitz theory but unrealistic representation of investment information. What is missing is a realistic treatment of estimation error in the optimization and rebalancing process.

The text provides a non-technical review of classical Markowitz optimization and traditional objections. The authors demonstrate that in practice the single most important limitation of MV optimization is
oversensitivity to estimation error. Portfolio optimization requires a modern statistical perspective. Efficient Asset Management, Second Edition uses Monte Carlo resampling to address information uncertainty and define Resampled Efficiency (RE) technology. RE optimized portfolios represent a new definition of portfolio optimality that is more investment intuitive, robust, and provably investment effective. RE rebalancing provides the first rigorous portfolio trading, monitoring, and asset importance rules, avoiding widespread ad hoc methods in current practice.

The Second Edition resolves several open issues and misunderstandings that have emerged since the original edition. The new edition includes new proofs of effectiveness, substantial revisions of statistical
estimation, extensive discussion of long-short optimization, and new tools for dealing with estimation error in applications and enhancing computational efficiency. RE optimization is shown to be a Bayesian-based generalization and enhancement of Markowitz's solution. RE technology corrects many current practices that may adversely impact the investment value of trillions of dollars under current asset management. RE optimization technology may also be useful in other financial optimizations and more generally in multivariate estimation contexts of information uncertainty with Bayesian linear constraints.

Michaud and Michaud's new book includes numerous additional proposals to enhance investment value including Stein and Bayesian methods for improved input estimation, the
use of portfolio priors, and an economic perspective for asset-liability optimization. Applications include investment policy, asset allocation, and equity portfolio optimization. A simple global asset allocation problem illustrates portfolio optimization techniques. A final chapter includes practical advice for avoiding simple portfolio design errors.

With its important implications for investment practice, Efficient Asset Management 's highly intuitive yet rigorous approach to defining optimal portfolios will appeal to investment management executives, consultants, brokers, and anyone seeking to stay abreast of current investment technology. Through practical examples and illustrations, Michaud and Michaud update the practice of optimization for modern investment
management.

This edition includes a CD that contains a demo of the patented, internet-based optimization software created by the authors at their consulting firm, New Frontier Advisors, which has been chosen to cosponsor the new Harry M. Markowitz Award.

A Practical Guide to Stock Portfolio Optimization and Asset Allocation

Author Information

Richard O. Michaud is President and Chief Investment Officer at New Frontier Advisors. His research and consulting has focused on asset allocation, investment strategies, global investment management, optimization, stock valuation, portfolio analysis, and trading costs. He is co-inventor and patentee of Resampled Efficiency optimization. He earned a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Boston University and taught investment management at Columbia University.

Robert O. Michaud, the co-inventor of the patented portfolio optimization processes, is the Managing Director of Research and Development at New Frontier Advisors. Mr. Michaud holds a Masters in Mathematics from Boston University and pursued a Ph.D. in finance from the Anderson School of Management at the
University of California at Los Angeles before joining NFA. His research interests include risk models, empirical asset pricing, and international finance.